Few Thrills or Spills in Scrimmage ...

NOT MUCH OFFENSE Regulars look sharp in limited action, but just two touchdowns in scrimmage
FEWER INJURIES Culberson tweaks an ankle, but that's about it for the injury report

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MEQUON, Wis. — The Rams made it through Saturday's team scrimmage without major injury, without major incident, and without much excitement.

There were only two touchdowns scored by the offense, no takeaways by the defense, and only two "sacks." (Hitting quarterbacks was prohibited, even in the tackling portion of the scrimmage, but third-team defenders C.J. Ah You and Marc Magro would've had sacks.)

The early read on the No. 3 quarterback job? Inconclusive. Brock Berlin completed seven of 13 passes. Bruce Gradkowski completed eight of 12, including a touchdown pass to fourth-round draft pick Keenan Burton, and also flashed impressive scrambling skills to elude the pass rush on several occasions.

Running back Lance Ball, an undrafted rookie from Maryland, scored the other TD on an off-tackle run.

"Stretch play to the right," said Ball, an affable bowling ball at 5 feet 9, 232 pounds. "Great seal (block) on the outside, on the end. Fullback led up, kicked out the defender. I turned it up."

Simple as that.

Linebacker Quinton Culberson, who is making a bid for the starting strongside job, tweaked an ankle, but other than that Saturday's injury report looked clean.

There was, however, some interesting "dialogue," what with coach Scott Linehan and Jim Haslett barking at each other during the non-tackling portion of the scrimmage. This occurred when the Rams' starting offense was going against the starting defense, 11 on 11.

"We bark all the time," Linehan said, shrugging off the exchange. "That's football. I think there was an alignment problem. In our pre-shift, I don't think we were lined up right on offense."

Haslett apparently was complaining about this to back judge Steve Freeman — a former teammate of his with Buffalo and part of the four-man NFL officiating crew working the scrimmage.

Linehan basically told Haslett to pipe down.

"Coaches are pretty competitive, too," said Linehan, who looked pumped up for the scrimmage, chomping authoritatively on some gum.

All in all, it was a disjointed morning. An overflow crowd estimated at 2,000 filled Century Stadium, home of the Concordia University Wisconsin Falcons. But it was a late-arriving crowd because Linehan moved up the starting time nearly one hour to 9:50 a.m.

With 10 players sidelined with injuries, including four projected starters and five top backups, Linehan shortened the length of the scrimmage and paid no attention to the line of scrimmage.

For example, after Travis Minor reeled off a run of about 30 yards on easily the longest running play of the day, the line of scrimmage was re-established only about 10 yards down field. So for most of the day, down and distance had no relation to what occurred on the previous play.

"We wanted to work situations," Linehan said. "We wanted to work first, second and third down and kind of spread it out."

Because of the walking wounded, some players such at Ah You and fellow defensive end Eric Moore played every snap during the tackling part of the scrimmage.

There were a few pre-snap penalties, such as false starts, and that was of some concern to Linehan.

"If you want to be a good team, or a great team, you can't line up wrong," Linehan said. "You can't jump offsides. ... We'll have to rattle their cage a little on that."

Continuing a trend of recent days in camp, the offensive regulars looked sharp Saturday, whether it was with Marc Bulger or Trent Green at quarterback.

"We didn't take a whole lot of reps (Saturday), but the reps that we did take we tried to hit at a pretty good clip," wide receiver Torry Holt said. "We tried to establish a rhythm, tried to establish a tempo and a way of how we want to do things."

Despite missing some practice time earlier in the week with swelling of the knee, wide receiver Drew Bennett had a couple of nice receptions, an encouraging early sign for the offense.

"He has big shoes to fill with Isaac (Bruce) gone, who was a staple of this offense forever," Bulger said. "I think he realizes that. He worked hard in the offseason. I think just like a quarterback, the more and more he learns this offense, the more he'll be able to play fast because he won't be thinking as much

Re: Few Thrills or Spills in Scrimmage ...

There was, however, some interesting "dialogue," what with coach Scott Linehan and Jim Haslett barking at each other during the non-tackling portion of the scrimmage. This occurred when the Rams' starting offense was going against the starting defense, 11 on 11.

"We bark all the time," Linehan said, shrugging off the exchange. "That's football. I think there was an alignment problem. In our pre-shift, I don't think we were lined up right on offense."

Haslett apparently was complaining about this to back judge Steve Freeman — a former teammate of his with Buffalo and part of the four-man NFL officiating crew working the scrimmage.

That's pretty amusing. Haslett complaining to an official about the Rams offense. Brings back memories.